Catching His Breath
by TutorGirlml
Summary: a one- shot follow-up to the "Knockdown" episode;  Lanie patches Esposito up after it all goes down, and they find just how deep into each other they really are


(As you can tell by the title, I'm gonna make this little one-shot kind of a companion to "Catching Her Fall". In that one though, I was still just hoping they would get together and imagining how it would happen. Now I can actually write them as a couple and feel more "in canon" –sort of. Obviously I don't own Lanie, Javier (bummer), or "Castle" in the slightest and am just playing for fun. Enjoy!)

Catching His Breath

By: TutorGirlml

Just as Javier Esposito was starting to feel his heart rate return to normal, and the frantic, angry, panicked pounding in his head recede a bit, while the paramedics treated the lacerations from rope burn on his neck and looked over the shoulder he had pulled out of joint trying to jerk away from the thug holding him and get in between Kevin and Lockwood's gun, he heard her voice. He looked up from where he sat slumped, trying to avoid anyone's – even the paramedics' – eyes and tried to see where she was.

His eyes went to where Beckett, with Castle trailing her like an especially attentive puppy, was fetching a blanket to wrap around Kevin Ryan's still sopping-wet shoulders and handing him her phone – no doubt so that he could call Jenny and have her voice to ground him again. Javier couldn't help feeling like he had failed the three of them. Beckett, whom he regarded as a capable, beloved younger sister, and Castle had taken a huge risk coming in together without back-up for he and Ryan after Lockwood had taken them hostage. And he had failed to protect his partner and have his back as well. He almost didn't want any of them to even come over to him; he couldn't bring himself to face them yet.

But Lanie…that was another story. As soon as he heard her voice come yelling onto the scene, he wanted – _needed _– to see her desperately. Looking up sharply, his dark eyes lost some of their hurt and weariness in scanning the street outside the warehouse, searching for his girl. When he finally spotted her, Javier Esposito had to crack just the smallest of smiles; she was right up in Ryan's space, concerned about Kevin obviously, but even more intent on the fact that she didn't see Javier with the rest of her friends and dead set on finding him and checking him over for herself _that instant._ She saw Kevin give a raised eyebrow and sardonic half-grin, but then he pointed in Esposito's direction, toward the ambulance. Javier saw the look on Kevin's face for just a moment; mischievous knowing as he shook his head at Lanie. However, before he even had time to be bothered that their "on the down low" relationship status was blown with his partner – and probably Kate and Castle too – he realized that Lanie's gaze had found him. He focused in on her, stepped down out of the bus to meet her, and thankfully felt everything else – the whole rest of the world – disappear.

The paramedic who had been trying to disinfect and bandage the rope burns and broken skin on his neck was griping at him to come back, and his shoulder was burning with the pain it was causing him to move it, but when he saw her headed right for him all he did was open his arms. Her last few steps turned into a run as she flung herself into his embrace, struggling to bury herself ever closer to his chest.

A wince escaped his lips at the pressure of even her petite frame against his strained arm, but he traded it gladly for having her close again and never wanting her to pull away. An hour ago, it had been looking like he would never wake up to her smile – even see her – again. This was one time when he was glad to have been proven wrong.

Finally, Esposito pulled away just enough to sneak a finger under Lanie's chin and tilt her face up so he could look into her eyes. He was startled to find tears pooling in the corners of her eyes that she had been trying to hide with her face in his shirt. Guilt overcame him at scaring her so badly, even if it hadn't been his fault and he wouldn't have done anything differently. At first, though they were great friends and had been attracted to each other for some time, when they had begun hooking up, the two of them had just been having fun. It had come to mean more to him pretty quickly – by the morning after their first night together, in fact. But Javier hadn't been quite able to feel out where Lanie stood on the matter yet. He didn't want her to feel pressured, or to scare her off if she wasn't feeling the same. He had been operating under the assumption that he had it worse for her than she did for him, or that his heart was in deeper, but he realized while looking at the tear tracks drying on her cheeks and feeling a swelling expansion in his chest that maybe that wasn't the case after all.

"You scare me like that again, Javier Esposito," she warned, her voice stern, but the emotion in her eyes too raw to completely back it up, "and I may have to kill you myself." She very gingerly reached up to touch the angry red marks from the rope on his neck with just the tips of her tentative fingers. The doctor in her couldn't help wanting to fix him and make it all better herself. Just barely making contact with his skin obviously hurt him, as he flinched at her touch, even though he tried to hide it. Lanie drew in a sharp breath in sympathy, her warm brown eyes radiating apology for thoughtlessly paining him more.

"Let's go home and get you patched up right," she whispered, giving him a wink and taking his hand to twine their fingers together, even though the rest of their crew had to be watching by now. He felt better already.

"I'm not helpless, you know," Esposito found himself reminding her sulkily an hour or so later. Lanie had insisted on driving him home and coming up to his apartment with him to cook him a very late supper. "I only pulled my shoulder and got some cuts on the neck. I haven't lost an arm or a leg or been permanently maimed. I could give you a hand at least."

"I don't think so," she shot back, the glare she gave him over her shoulder set him back in his seat even as he'd just started to stand. "Would you just let me finish? I'm almost done, and then we can eat."

He shook his head at her, knowing she was trying to fuss over him now because there had been nothing she could do to help him before, and because she wasn't ready to deal with how much that truly scared her – how much she had honestly begun to care. She wouldn't let his chocolate-y eyes catch hers; he knew she didn't want him to see that she was spooked. But he could see it anyway, in every line of her body and in the very way she moved – all short, jerky bursts of action instead of the fluid languidity she generally used to entrance him. He knew Lanie better than she realized, and they might have been forcibly brought to the point tonight where one or the other of them would have to admit how much their relationship mattered.

"Lain, seriously," he whispered, soundlessly standing and moving over behind her where she was stirring the pasta at the counter. She seemed not to even realize that he had moved, what with having her back to him and trying to avoid his eyes, until he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush against him, ignoring once again the twinge in his shoulder for the comforting warmth of her body next to his. Leaning down, he buried his face in her soft neck, feeling her hair tickle his cheek and trying to hide from the memories, pain, and anger of the day.

"Javier, don't hurt your shoulder…" she started, but was shushed by his turning her in his arms and planting a kiss on her mouth that cut all words off and made even the memory of what she'd been about to say vanish. Feeling her bones and sinews melt at his touch and start to blur into his warmth, Lanie didn't even want to move or finish her thought.

His large, callused hands came up to frame her face before brushing back through her hair, and he was murmuring her name, low and accented, before his lips moved from hers to lightly kiss her brow. With that, Javier Esposito realized that he was going to take the plunge. He would be the one to speak up and make the leap. It was obvious that she needed to hear that what they had was real, even if she couldn't bring herself to say it. He realized blatantly that after the horror of this day he needed to hear the words too, whether or not it scared him as well.

His mouth still hovered near her brow, close enough to her face to brush her skin with the heat of his intensity. "Just let me hold you, Lain…please. Look at me…" he drew in an almost ragged breath then haltingly continued. "I thought I might not see those eyes of yours again. Now, I've gotten back to you…and you won't look at me."

She didn't pull away from him, but she still averted her eyes, burying her face in his shoulder. "You don't know," she mumbled. "You can't….I don't want you to see…I thought you were gone…"

"But _I'm not gone_," Javier ground out forcefully, making her meet his fiery gaze. "I'm right here, Nena. Don't pull away from me."

Her eyes blinked closed for a moment, but then she nodded her concession and finally spoke, "You win, Javi. You win" Shaking her head at his dogged persistence, she admitted defeat, and her own fear. Reaching up to gingerly check the marks on his neck, she answered his appeal for connection and comfort with her own patent attitude covering her vulnerability. "I care way more than I meant to when we started this thing…and I'm afraid to lose you. Are you happy now?"

He grinned impishly, a bit of his cocky charm returning. "Actually, yeah, I am. I don't want to lose you either."

Playfully, she smacked his cheek and then pulled him down to her, trying to put him at her own height. "You're impossible," she grumbled, her voice grudgingly adoring. "Now, come here and let me get a good look at you."

Chuckling to himself, Esposito let Lanie cluck her tongue and suck in a sharp breath at the sight of the red welts of rope burn and raw skin. He let her pull him towards the bathroom with her small hand tugging on his to bring him along behind her. The injuries still burned and stung, but her concern was working on them like a healing balm, and her caring for him touched him to the core.

She stopped at the sink and paused only briefly to rifle through his medicine cabinet, before letting out a frustrated exclamation and dumping all that she had gathered from her arms into the basin. "Here," she said in a one of voice that brooked no argument as she turned to face him. Grasping the hem of his thermal, maroon-colored shirt, she carefully pulled it up and off over his head, with Javier mutely obliging by raising his arms and simply watching her work. She loosened his belt and left him to shed his jeans for himself, while she doffed her own clothing thoughtlessly and stepped into the shower in her underwear. Somehow she had turned the water on and had it running warmly without him even noticing, and Esposito wondered if either his reflexes or his reaction time had been affected by his and Ryan's ordeal. Though Lain standing in his shower, water rolling down her luscious body enticingly and pulling him towards her to join in was rawly erotic, there was something else there. Something vulnerable. And her openness, her wanting so badly to take care of him that she hadn't even thought of being sexy just then, almost paralyzed him with emotion. His stunned, hazy mind and body took several beats before he stepped forward into the shower and followed her lead.

With more care and tenderness than he thought he had ever seen or felt from her, Javier watched Lanie's hands and eyes as she used the warm water, soap, peroxide, and eventually a soft, clean towel, aloe, antibacterial gel, and bandages to fix him up in a way infinitely more tender and loving than the EMTs before her had managed. Parts of it hurt, and yet as she finished administering her treatment, and her small, light hands lingered on his shoulders as she smoothed down the dressing over his wounds, he couldn't help letting out a calm, easy sigh of contentment. As long as she was touching him this way, he would gladly be hurt to merit it.

Finally rousing from the stupefied trance that Lanie, the warm water and her gentle hands, plus his adrenaline flagging and the hurts he'd sustained had added to, Javier found himself moving again – towards her. His hands were in her hair once more, stopping her ministrations to dry him and instead capturing her in a grateful, adoring, almost worshipful ministration of his own. One hand lay along her neck, stroking up her skin as he pulled her closer, while ever so slowly backing her from the bathroom into his bedroom.

Lanie chuckled low in her throat, the vibrations of it felt on his lips, as she brushed her fingers down his toned arms and allowed herself to be moved along on his chosen course. She would give him whatever he needed right now, and she realized it every bit as fully as suddenly realized she had been trying to avoid that very sort of attachment. Whatever she needed to do for him tonight, she would be there for him and love him with all that she had. When he gently nudged her side, urging to sit just as the backs of her knees hit the edge of his bed, she complied easily. Giving into him as easily as butter melting in a hot skillet on the stove, Lanie felt herself dissolving into nothingness at the heat of his passion. She had never felt as loved as he could make her feel with the simplest of words or gestures. Nothing more than the very way he kissed her or looked at her sometimes, and she felt as though she had never been kissed before – not in the way that he kissed, as if he touched not only her lips, but her soul.

Instead of covering her within his own body when she finally laid back, Javier curled around her at her side; pulling her into his embrace and gathering her up so closely that she sensed just how close he thought he had come to losing her. She didn't say anything, didn't push him for words or confessions. He had already given her more than could have been comfortable for him. She merely cuddled up to his body, letting them both be healed by the closeness instead of the exertion to affirm life that she had been expecting. It shouldn't have been a shock to either of them when both drifted off to sleep in each other's arms.

When she woke the next morning, Lanie eased out of Javier's arms and stood looking back down at him, glad to see a faint smile on his handsome features as he slept. She'd feared nightmares and insomnia and panic attacks for him all throughout the night, but none had come yet. She hoped if she snuck into the kitchen to start making them breakfast, that those nightmares wouldn't descend on him and cause him to wake and think she was gone. She knew those terrors, the unnecessary guilt she'd seen in his eyes over Ryan being hurt and Kate and Castle's risk-taking, and the fear over what he now knew they meant to each other, could still overwhelm him. Yet, she knew he was strong; she knew he could face whatever residual difficulties would come from the ordeal he had weathered. He was a good cop – a good man. Whether he realized it yet, whether he would admit a need of it or not, she also knew he wouldn't do his overcoming alone. She would be there every step of the way. She would be there to hold him in the night if he woke back in that warehouse, woke thinking he or Ryan or Kate hadn't managed the luck they'd had. Whether there were tears or screams, or shakes and cold sweats, she would be by his side until he caught his breath and the horror passed. From here on out, she would have his back. Both of them knew it now; there was no going back.


End file.
